Uneasy Rhetoric

For me, October is the beginning of the high beer season. October through Christmas is the time of year I give up my Guinness and go for something stronger: the winter beers. I am not an expert on winters, but I’ve been drinking them long enough that I have some favorites. I’ll be reviewing them as I drink them.

Quality control notwithstanding, seasonal beers from microbreweries do vary some from year to year, probably because they aren’t brewed constantly. A friend in Portland with better beer judgment than I told me yesterday that Pyramid’s Snow Cap Ale, always a strong performer, was unusually good this year. Better still, he was drinking it from a bottle.

So, I moseyed down to the Pyramid Alehouse on 11th and K after work and ordered up a pint from the tap. Chris and my wife joined me and we drank a few and had some appetizers.

The Snow Cap is really good. It is a deep amber to brown colored beer (Pyramid says “mahogany”) without much head. It was not served to me in the manner pictured on their site. The taste was rich without being either sweet or too bitter (I didn’t get the “fruit flavors” their website suggests). A mild but noticeable alcohol aftertaste went away after the beer had warmed up a little – or after I did – making me wonder if they weren’t serving it a bit too cold.

This is a smooth beer. At 7 percent alcohol, it is also a strong beer. By comparison, Guinness is around 4 percent and most craft beers run 5-6 percent. Remember to take that into consideration as you drink it all too quickly. However, if you are at home, grab a bottle when the weather gets cold and it will warm you up.

This is an ideal winter food beer. I can imagine it with beef, pork, or any kind of bean dish. It will go very well with my enchiladas verde.

I don’t have a rating system for beer, but if I did, this would be in the 90th percentile, at least.